In Find Another Dream by Maysoon Zayid, we are asked, if laughter truly is the best medicine, then surely, the best jokes should be saved for the worst afflictions, shouldn’t they? As odd as it sounds, the answer actually is yes. However, as is so often the case, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ and jokes about chronic disease or terminal illness require extreme sensitivity to get right. I’ve seen it done, but it demands the most feather light of touches to navigate this razor’s edge of comedy without causing hurt.

Narrated by Maysoon Zayid herself, this memoir takes a wander through her life so far. I really struggled with her rambling style. At one point in the book, Maysoon explains she hates writing scripts down and prefers to ad-lib as she goes along. It shows in this book. Many of the chapter divisions appear arbitrary and on a few occasions the subject matter skips mid chapter. Unlike many inspirational books based on personal experience, this book doesn’t attempt to tell a ‘lesson for life’ in each chapter nor does it run through her life chronologically. It jumps about on a neck wrenching roller coaster as Maysoon skips back and forth between, often unrelated, events in her life.

The early part of the book was the most interesting as she explained her parent’s stories as the grew up in Palestine and then moved the focus of their lives to the USA.

It tends to be quite self-contradictory.

Once it moved on to Maysoon’s education and career, it fell a little flat for me. I suspect that listeners with a deeper appreciation of American popular culture can better follow the TV show references and the incesant name dropping. I just found it boring.

The central message Maysoon appears to want to project is,

It is a nice thought, however, as she also points out at least once, she is a bit of an exception to the rule and things that worked for her probably won’t work for others. This is the core weakness of the book. It tends to be quite self-contradictory. In between the ‘handicapped people can do whatever they set their mind to and don’t need sympathy or special treatment.’ is a liberal sprinkling of ‘It was so difficult and awkward because nobody made adjustments for my disability.’

Finally, Maysoon is apparently an internationally successful stand-up comedian. I have never seen her routine. Perhaps she really is very funny. I certainly didn’t get that feeling listening to this audio book. On occasion, the intonation in her narrating voice sounded almost like she was delivering a punchline, but I never got anywhere close to laughing. Together with the lack of structure or inspiration, this put the whole concept of this book into question for me.

If you are simply interested in the disassociated directionless memoirs of a person who just coincidentally happens to be:

, then you may very well enjoy this book. I personally wouldn’t be interested in a sequel.

If you are already a fan of Maysoon Zayid, please leaving a short comment to let me know what you think about my review.
Even better, if you have already listened to this audio book, let me know if you agree with my assessment or if you think I have grossly misrepresented something, but do remember NO SPOILERS! We don’t want to ruin it for others.

Find out more about Maysoon Zayid and her books at:

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